Eyes Wide Open (aka Killing Hour)

how ?”

“You remember that plastic bag I handed back to your brother? With your nephew’s personal effects in it?”

I nodded. I thought back to what was in it. A few dollars, some loose change, a key chain …

Then it hit me. “ That plastic hologram…, ” I said. Our gazes met. “ An eye? The markings on Zorn resembled an eye!”

Sherwood shrugged without a change in his expression. “If you wanted to see it that way.”

“And how did you see it?” I stared back, suddenly feeling vindicated.

In his gray, noncommittal eyes, I could see the slightest giving in.

Sonovabitch … I felt a surge rush up in me. He’s beginning to have misgivings too!

“Look,” he said, pushing back, “I’m a coroner’s detective, not homicide. I don’t solve crimes any longer. I just see if they warrant an investigation. And this one is about as flimsy as it gets. Beyond flimsy! This Miguel Estrada kid says Zorn and your nephew were talking. You find something in your brother’s past that connects him and Zorn. Three decades ago. There are knife marks on the victim that kind of resemble something we found on your nephew. They’d laugh me out of the squad room.”

“I’m not laughing.”

“Yeah.” He chuckled. “I know. That’s my problem.”

“Can I see them?” I asked. “These knife marks.”

“Not in the cards.”

“I just thought it might help. To confirm what you thought you saw. So where were they?” I asked. “On the body?”

Sherwood picked up and tapped his pencil. “On the underside of the victim’s tongue.”

“Oh…” The feeling snaked through me that I had stepped in something bad. Houvnanian. His victims carved with symbols. Blood all over the walls. Zorn.

Charlie.

“You have to look into this, Sherwood.”

He pushed the articles back to me. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, doc.”

“Someone, maybe this woman, Susan Pollack, may have had something to do with Evan’s death.”

“There’s nothing tying her into anything, doc. Your nephew still went up on the rock. He jumped off. Or damn well fell while attempting to.” He looked at me unwaveringly.

“You told me no one would talk to me over at homicide. And maybe no one gives a shit about Evan,” I said, “but they damned well might give one about Zorn.”

“Look…” He glanced at his watch. “I got things to do. And you, you’re supposed to be on a plane. Right? ”

I looked back at him unwaveringly. “You really think I’m going anywhere until this is resolved?”

The detective stared at me a long time before he threw the pencil back on his desk and shook his head. “Anyone ever tell you, doc, you make it awfully hard for someone to like you?”

I shrugged. “My wife says it all the time.”

He stood up and grabbed his jacket. “Yeah, well your wife knows what she’s talking about on this one.”

I said I’d call him the next day. And the day after that. Until he looked into the possibility of what those cuts meant.

And until he checked out Susan Pollack.

“I know, I know…,” I said with a smile. “Don’t wait by the phone.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Kathy called when I got in the car. I had just pushed off a procedure on the daughter of a friend. Now I was pushing for a few days more. Her patience was running thin. Mine might have been too, if the situation was reversed.

“It’s time to come home, Jay.”

I didn’t answer for a second. I wasn’t exactly sure how to. “I can’t, Kath. I just can’t.”

“What the hell is going on out there, Jay? This is beginning to scare me a little now. I’m sorry about what happened to Evan. My heart goes out to Charlie and Gabby. It really does… But people need you here. It’s time to come back.”

“I can’t, Kath.” I sucked in a sharp breath without explaining.

“You can’t? ” There was an edge to her tone.

I pulled the car over to the side of the road. “I’ve just found out a few things. And it’s hard to explain. Especially right now.”

“Well, try, Jay. Try! You’ve been there almost a week. So please, try…”

There was about the toughest silence I’d ever felt pass between us. Maybe twenty seconds, but it felt like an eternity.

I wanted to say, I love you, honey. You know that. I need you. Especially right now.

But I just can’t tell you.

Until I knew for sure.

I saw something starting to open up. Something only I saw. Something only I could put together.

I flashed to Russell Houvnanian. To the time he’d been up to my dad’s.

And then to Evan. The flashing “eye” they had found in his pocket. The eerie knife marks on Walter Zorn’s tongue.

And finally to something I’d held back, from Charlie, from Sherwood.

And now, even from my wife.

The image of someone staring at me from their car the other night outside Charlie’s apartment. Their face obscured by the darkened glass.

I didn’t know for sure, but it all added up to me. Maybe only to me.

I thought I’d seen Susan Pollack.

And if I had, I knew what it meant.

It meant my nephew Evan had been murdered.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Charlie didn’t know what to do with the photos of Sherry’s gruesome murder.

He’d hidden them away-at the bottom of a drawer, with all his old music. And Evan’s sneaker.

He didn’t show them to Gabriella. They would only make her more distraught.

And he didn’t know what to make of them anyway. Or what they meant. Why would someone want to harm